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We've experienced a sudden, precipitous drop in business. Not nearly as many internet-based sales, with -far- more of these "blowing up" on us when customers decide not to pay for items they've purchased. Walk-in trade is down by double-digit percentages, though I don't know how bad it is yet, and where people were coming in 2-5 per day to sell us used guns as recently as two weeks ago, people are hanging onto their firepower now. We haven't even had a "Depression Special*" offered for sale in ten days. The one thing people do seem to be looking hard for is ammo, in stashable amounts. Problem is that the war's eaten most of the ammo supply, the Chinese have eaten most of the raw-materials supply, and inflation has eaten most of the Dollar's value, so what little ammunition -can- be found is expensive as Hell, even on our end. Stuff that used to retail for $100/1,000rounds is now $350/1000 for US, for customers it's even worse. Our suppliers are dumping inventory, which means that at the same time that sales are slumping the price of goods is being depressed.
Trust me, for a small business in a margin-tight field, this isn't something far away or divorced from our lives. We're all thanking God we live on a farm with orchards and fish-ponds, because food (and money to buy it with) are probably gonna start getting pretty tight soon. The PWT have already started stealing from each other's gardens (that is to say that the few who bothered to -have- gardens are being robbed by the 98% who didn't) and at least one person in the area's had a cow stolen.
*My slang term for any of the cheap, single-shot, break-open shotguns manufactured by New England Arms, Harrington & Richardson, et al. So named because these things are what fed our granddaddies during the Depression.
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